‘So driven, so dedicated’: how Lee Carsley rose to England’s head coach

If there was a precise moment when Kevin Kilbane knew his old friend was destined for the top, it came in 2016. Lee Carsley had been travelling from his home in the Midlands to stay at his former Everton and Republic of Ireland teammate’s house in Manchester after being named as Manchester City Under-18s coach a few months earlier.

“It was probably the best youth team I’ve ever seen,” Kilbane says. “I used to go and watch them on a Saturday morning and I could see the relationship he had with players like Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Brahim Díaz.

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“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a big pull from within the England camp to get him the job permanently. I’m sure lots of the players would want him to be the coach that takes them forward because of the relationships he’s built with so many of them already from various levels of the game.”

Speak to anyone who knows Carsley and they will tell you he has been consumed by coaching since being encouraged to take his first steps while a player under David Moyes at Everton. At his unveiling as England’s interim head coach last week, the 50-year-old revealed he had been practising for his big moment in the spotlight by continuing to take sessions at the Strachan Foundation in Warwick – just up the road from his home in Kenilworth.

Established by Gordon Strachan, his former manager at Coventry, it gives young players between the ages of 16 and 21 from outside the professional game an opportunity to take their coaching badges. “He comes when he can – last year he had a lot of involvement,” George Mackie, one of its directors, says of Carsley. “We’re very fortunate if he can find the time. Lee just really enjoys working with the young players.”

Carsley has credited Moyes with helping him fall in love with coaching by pushing him and his then teammates such as David Weir, now the technical director at Brighton, and Kilbane to start taking their badges. “Even going back to the mid-90s, he’s always thought a lot about the game,” says Kilbane, who lives in Canada but remains close to Carsley.

“Lee was probably the most dedicated professional that I’d ever come across. He was so driven and so dedicated to his profession that he would rarely go out and he’s just taken that forward into his coaching.”

After starting with Coventry Under-18s in 2011, Carsley experienced the brutal side of management within two years. He had left Coventry after two caretaker spells to join Sheffield United as an assistant to Weir, but the pair were shown the door after a couple of months. They were reunited when Carsley was appointed development squad manager at Brentford in October 2014 and, within a year, Carsley was thrown in at the deep end again as first-team coach. He inspired an instant turnaround that brought him a manager-of-the-month award before Dean Smith was handed the role in November 2015.

“Lee was very mindful of the fact that so many ex-players can get a job quite early in their coaching career and the managerial side of it is almost over before the coaching has begun,” says Kilbane. “Once you’ve had a head coach or manager’s role, it’s not always easy to revert back to just being a coach or an understudy.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions about where he was going and the jobs he has turned down over the years. Lee was single-minded in his approach because this was a vocation for him. It’s definitely a long-term plan – longevity is essential for him.”

Carsley’s skills as a developer of young talent caught the eye of the Football Association and his next move was to become an assistant to Aidy Boothroyd with England Under-19s. A year later, he was appointed as the FA’s first “out-of-possession” coach – with responsibility for all age groups from under-15 to under-21. That coincided with his spell at City, when Carsley’s side were beaten in the FA Youth Cup final by Chelsea.

He left City after a year despite being said to have been highly regarded by Pep Guardiola, who invited him to watch first-team training. The experience Carsley gained there is understood to have played a key role in establishing his philosophy.

His return to his former side Birmingham as the head professional development coach in 2017 was his most recent club role and he was once more asked to step into the breach temporarily before departing in March 2018.

Since then, he has worked in various roles at St George’s Park, including professional development phase lead with responsibility for the under-18s, under-19s and under-20s, before succeeding Boothroyd as the under-21s manager after England’s failure to get out of the group stage at the 2021 European Championship.

“Lee has gone the right way about it – he’s coached at youth and senior levels and worked his way up through the system,” says Chris Powell, who was part of England’s coaching staff under Gareth Southgate and played with Carsley at Derby. Kilbane adds: “While people might say he has got no experience of managing at the top level, I think that the way he has done it is much better than any other manager or coach that is in the game right now because it’s all been so thought out.”

Powell remembers Carsley impressing when asked to make a presentation during the 2022 World Cup campaign in Qatar before England’s last-16 game against Senegal: “He spoke about their setup in and out of possession and other stuff. That can be quite daunting in front of Gareth, [assistant] Steve [Holland] and the other staff. It was huge but he handled it really well. We would all ask questions and he would have the answers.”

The success of the under-21s in becoming European champions last July for the first time since successive titles in 1982 and 1984 helped Carsley’s case to replace Southgate. Powell, the assistant manager at Sheffield Wednesday, thinks the team’s approach in that tournament was an indication of Carsley’s abilities.

“The 21s had quite a unique way of playing,” he says. “He moved [Angel] Gomes to play in a deeper midfield role and also had James Garner playing at right-back. Lee thought that he had more forward-thinking players in certain positions and wanted to dominate the ball. So instead of having an out-and-out right-back he felt he could get away with having someone who is better on the ball. He showed some very clever tactical acumen at that tournament and hopefully he can replicate that with the seniors.”

Related: ‘Everything’s been worth it’: Angel Gomes revels in journey to England call-up

Anthony Gordon – a member of that side who, like Gomes, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and Morgan Gibbs-White, is now part of the senior squad – has described Carsley as the “best man-manager” he has worked with, and Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott said the former under-21s coach gave him the “freedom to enjoy my football”.

Kilbane and Powell expect Carsley to be a strong contender to be handed the role permanently if he can prove himself over the coming months, starting with a trip to Dublin in the Nations League on Saturday.

“I wish he was in the other dugout this weekend but I think Ireland missed the boat on that one,” says Kilbane. “The most encouraging thing about Lee for any future employer of his is that he’s touched on almost every single aspect of the game in terms of coaching and development – at club and international level.”

Powell says: “He’s used to this role: knowing that he has to try to take care of a group moving in the right direction. No one knows exactly where it might lead but he has these games to make an impression. It’s the perfect storm – Lee has had success with the under-21s recently and we have a very talented and quite young group in the main.

“We are producing players that can make the step up from the under-21s as we have seen with the first squad. Obviously there is a lot of pressure that comes with being England manager but this is Lee’s moment to shine.”